Myakka River State Park Campground

Beware; come prepared. There is no potable water in the entire park! This is a long term condition until Park develops a reverse osmosis system. No completion date. Ranger station has free bottled water for campers at 2gal/day. Not convenient. There is no reduction in price.

Old Prairie Loop sites are close together with little vegetation for privacy. Bathhouse is dated but clean. “Hot” water is tepid.

There are many hiking trails BUT none leave from Old Prairie nor Palmetto Ridge Campgrounds. Campers need to unhook and drive to trail heads. Again not convenient.

Verizon was 2bars LTE. Many OTA tv stations.

If you, I recommend Palmetto Ridge when booking here, The sites are much more spacious and most (if not all) have FHU. The bathhouses are very nice in this loop as well.

The park itself is very busy and for a good reason. There's tons to do here and more wildlife than I could have imagined. Absolutely beautiful place to camp and enjoy the outdoors.

We loved this park and will definitely be back. The campsite was beautiful and we didn’t feel like we were on top of our neighbors. Easy in and out.
The trails, bridge and gators were awesome!

This was our first trip to Myakka River State Park. We were concerned that it would be completely flooded due to all the rain over the last few weeks. While the water was still high, the campsites in the Palmetto Ridge loop were dry (mostly). The Palmetto Ridge Campground is the full hookup loop of Myakka River State Park, and site 64 was huge! Most all of the sites were large and easily accessible. The Canopy Walk Nature Trail was a neat experience as well! We would absolutely stay here again!

Myakka River State Park gets five stars as a park. But this is a campground review and the Big Flats campground only gets three stars. It is possible that the other campgrounds within the park are nicer, we did not tour them. The campsites at Big Flats are smaller than average for Florida State Parks and there is no vegetation screening sites from one another. The true failure of the campground is the sewage system. The odors from the system permeate the entire campground. It's not pleasant. The campground also has a fire ant problem, though the park staff do try and keep it under control. On a positive note, the campground is within walking distance of the concession area. You can take boat tours, rent canoes, and grab a meal at the location.

I camped at the Palmetto Ridge loop which has full hook-ups and large sites for RVs up to 40', quite a few pull thrus. Sounds good, right? For me this is just an OK campground due to some serious drawbacks. 1) No AT&T cell service. Every person I asked who had AT&T reported no service. One person with Verizon got 3 bars, another got 1-2 bars but could not stream. 2) Too far from hiking trails to walk to them, must drive your car or RV to trailheads. Same for canoes and kayaks.

Site 62 was a level pull thru requiring only 1 block on front tires. 30 amp power was steady, did not use the water (came with a full tank). Sewer connection is raised several inches above the ground, so high a slinky still might not cause the effluent to flow. I had to raise the sewer hose by hand to get tanks to drain. Fairly good distance between sites and most had bushes between with various degrees of privacy. Most sites had no shade. Roads are paved and sites are gravel with some bare / mud spots.

Campground was mostly quiet on the Tuesday night I visited. I-75 is about 9 miles away and supplies are available there.

This place is best for real outdoors people who like to be away from "civilization." Lack of cell service and not much for me to do mean I will not return.

WORST PARK MANAGMENT AWARD OF THE YEAR........ We planned a trip for weeks.. Spent hundreds on camping/hiking gear.. changed schedules at work, paid to have pets kennelled.... drove hours to the park only to be told that they cancelled out resdervations the morning of our planned scheduled weekend hike.. No call and they said they called that very morning.. No call... Regardless... we had reservations, plans.. spent a fortune for this weekend and they decided that very morning that they would do a BURN and we would have to find other arraingments. They didn't offer us a camp site, a cabin, or another spot at another site on the trail. They just said OH WELL YOU ARE OUT..... I said WHAT THE F>>> and they hung up on me. This is the worst case of customer relations I have ever seen.. Weeks and hundreds planned on this weekend and they don't give a rats a....ss about people. I am behond upset and pissed off. And the ranger on the phone.. She is one nasty person.. No effort to figure it out for us.. Hundreds and hundreds of acres of land and they can't help us find a place to hike and camp. The other hiking sites were all open, so the scheduled burn couldn't have been that big.. And why would you take our reservations and then wait until last minute to tell us they are doing a planned burn and that we are f###Ked and to go someplace else.???? Disappointed is an understatement.. We deserve an apology and this needs to be fixed by the park manager. You don' t treat people like this.

Overall, this is a wonderful park and the campgrounds are very nice. Camped in a 35” motorhome. We are self-contained so cannot comment on restrooms/shower facilities. There are 3 campgrounds in the park. Big Flats is the closest to Upper Lake and has 20+ sites and has many trees and the most laid back vibe. If you want to be near the Weir and lake then this is your best bet. The other 2 campgrounds are closer to the bridge and south entrance. Old Prairie has 20+ sites and has lots of trees and shade. Palmetto Ridge has 40+ sites and has full hookup and pull through sites and appears to be the newest campground with most sites having less shade than the other 2 campgrounds. We stayed in Old Prairie with review geared toward this campground.
Pros –
- Lots of shade in most of the sites.
- Decent cell and internet coverage on Verizon and T-Mobile
- Sites are level and spacious.
- The campground was very quiet – some sites back up to the park road but overall it was a very peaceful and quiet campground.
- There is laundry facilities which are reasonably priced, clean and worked well.
- The people working in the office, the volunteers and camp workers are very helpful and friendly.
- Park – this State Park is one of the most beautiful we’ve seen. There is so much to do. During our 2 week stay we biked, hiked or kayaked every day. It’s a huge park with many trails and areas to explore. Kayaking is great except during the driest part of the year (late spring right before the wet season). Recommend picking up the $2 map to see details on the rivers and trails.

Cons –
- The online description of the Old Prairie sites denotes “gravel” pads. Not true. They are dirt. We made do but were surprised based on the description. If you want gravel choose the Palmetto Ridge campground.

For those of us who don't mind a 30 minute drive into the city, this is a great state park with lots of hiking and kayaking options. Saw a lot of gators and birds.

I stayed in Old Prairie which was very shaded and had level dirt sites. The bathrooms were generally clean though older. Got great Verizon service but zero AT+T. Was able to work and jump on Zoom meetings.

I give it a 5 but this should not been seen as in comparison to a full service RV luxury campground. It is a state park and you should look at it from a more outdoorsy perspective. I think I'd want more privacy in a tent though. I'd love to give it 4.5.

Also, there were no camp hosts and I think that had to do with the pandemic so I'm taking that into consideration for bathrooms.

This was our third visit to Myakka River State Park and was thoroughly enjoyable. Despite the weather heating up we still found lots of things to do, thank heavens for all the lovely shaded areas in the park.

This time we took the Tram Tour, something we'd never done before, I learned so much from our personable and knowledgeable guide Dennis about the three ecosystems existing in the park, the history of the feral hogs, the strong suggestion not to wander in the wild grassed areas due to the prevalence of several varieties of snakes, four which are lethal and the cottonmouth also known as the water moccasin that will actual chase after you to bite. There are lots of safe paths and roads to travel so it's easy to not wade through the prairies and former ranch lands. We also learned the history and background of the Palmer Ranch lands and Mrs Palmers forward thinking in cattle raising and breeding, and saw the site of the original Palmer Ranch House. There is a gift shop and canteen which wasn't open on our last visit due to covid-19 restrictions, the same probably applied to the Ranger led talks and campfires, we didn't get an opportunity to check on them.

We'd taken the boat tour before and enjoyed it, there is a special combination rate for the boat tour and tram tour that saves $8, l wasn't aware of that before as hubby purchased the boat tickets last time (and he's not a big sign reader). All the staff and rangers we met were friendly, knowledgeable, and a joy to deal with. Our campsite (number 83) was spotless, pea gravel paved, nice well maintained electrical, water and sewer connections, note the sewer connection is raised, it's easily connectible but you may have to make more adjustments that you're used to. We had the picnic table, fire pit and separate charcoal bbq on a metal post, although I used our BBQ and electrical appliances. We had quite a lot of privacy at our, good greenery screening, the area was quiet, site was extra large, near but not to the bathhouse, complete with nice hot showers, benches, clothes hoods, new clean shower curtains, well lit and spotlessly clean.

My brother in law saw our photos and has already asked us to take him there when he returns in the fall, this is a good, safe, clean and well supervised park with lots of bike, hike and walking trails and animals to see.

We used our cell phones from Verizon for email and calls and had absolutely no problem.